5
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Jane walks into first period English class not only exhausted but defeated. She spent five hours in the ER on Friday waiting for Hunter to get stitched up. Since he's a minor, his parents had to be informed of his injury, which lead to her parents being called in, and the rest was a royal mess. Her mother was beyond upset about her secretive behavior and served her a life-sentence of groundation (if that's even a word). Tiredly, she plops into her seat and stares at the blank board.
The wooden door swings open, and Hunter walks across the front of the classroom, dodging questions from his friend group about his face. He keeps quiet, simply waving them off as he approaches Jane. "I thought you'd want this," he says, laying her book on the desk.
"Yeah, thank you," she replies, weakly smiling. Bigfoot seems to continually lurk in her mind, its vivid features never seizing to haunt her. The past two nights, she had nightmares about the beast brutally murdering Hunter by ripping out his guts and...
"Are you okay?" Hunter asks, concern etched onto his face. His lips curve into a frown as he searches her eyes. It's not hard for him to predict what's on her mind. "I'm fine, you're fine, everything's okay now," he whispers in a soft, gentle tone.
Jane can't help but stare at the awful stitches buried in the side of his angular face. It makes him look like Frankenstein, and she is so over dealing with mythical creatures. "You've ruined camping for me, you know," she attempts to joke, trying hard to pull herself out of the black hole of fear and paranoia.
Hunter laughs out of surprise, dimples pressing into his cheeks. "Maybe next time we can have a proper date somewhere safer."
Jane freezes, wondering if she heard what she thought she heard. "And by that you mean...?"
He shrugs, cooly watching her think without any shame. "I don't know, what ever you want it to mean."
Jane never thought of Hunter as a potential boyfriend, but maybe it's time for her to take a leap of faith. After all, she single-handedly outsmarted Bigfoot, so who knows what an impulsive decision could bring her in the end.
"Pick the place, and I'll be there," she bravely says, sitting up taller in her seat.
The bell rings, and Hunter smiles at her before taking a seat between his group of rowdy friends. They pester him with questions, but he doesn't say anything about Friday night. More importantly, Jane turns her attention back to her book, flipping through the pages to find those notes. Luckily, they are all still wedged into the center of the novel. Flipping through them, she a sigh with relief because it seems as if they are untouched by foreign fingers.
Mr. Windsor hustles into the room in a flurry, his glasses crooked on his nose and his hair in disarray. In a mad rush, he opens his desk drawers and shoves as many papers and belonging as he can in his single suitcase. "Class, you will be having a substitute today. Be respectful and behave. Keep working on your essays."
And with that, he practically runs out of the room, disregarding the fact that he dropped a few papers and a ring of old keys. The door slams such, and for a moment, the confused class sits in silence. "Man, what's his rush?" someone asks.
"Maybe he's late for something?" a redhead girl replies, shrugging.
Curiosity seeps into her brain, drawing her to the dropped items. She can feel 20 pairs of eyes watching her as she rummages through the items. Most of its just a bunch of ungraded papers and emails from administration, but the metal ring of keys catches her attention. All of them look like house keys or old car keys, but only one sticks out from the rest. Jane's heart beats faster as her eyes widen with a mix of surprise, shock, and fear.
It's the key.
How could she possibly forget the infamous brass key found inside the pocket of those cargo pants she discovered in the woods? But more importantly, why the heck does Mr. Windsor have this?
"What do you got there?" Hunter asks as she discreetly slips the ornate key off the ring. Most the students already shrugged off the odd departure and decided to chat with their friends and play on their phones.
"Well, remember how I found that pile of clothes in the woods?" she asks.
Hunter nods, urging her to continue.
"I dug through the pockets of those pants and found this key inside. Obviously, I left it there, but it's now on Mr. Windsor's key ring."
He raises an eyebrow in surprise. "Really? Wow, that's weird. So you think he was out skinny dipping on Friday?"
Jane pauses, thinking. "No, he couldn't have been; the lake was probably about a fourth of a mile away from our campsite. It doesn't make sense to walk that far completely bare." There's only one plausible explanation she can think of, but it will sound crazy if she says it aloud.
"I can practically see your gears turning, Jane, what are you thinking? Just say it."
She sighs, surrendering. "Okay, but promise me you won't laugh."
"I won't, I promise."
Jane gulps. "What if Mr. Windsor is Bigfoot?"
Hunter bites on his lip, eyebrows furrowing. "So you think he's, like, a shapeshifter?"
"That would explain everything. The clothes with a couple of hairs on it, the meat disappearing, the key, the glasses, all of it. I don't know if you noticed, but everyday he always has a bunch of dog hair on him. But what if that hair came off of Bigfoot's body?"
"Wait, what do you mean by 'glasses'?" he asks, confused.
"There was also a pair of glasses in one of the pockets which happen to look exactly like Mr. Windsor's glasses," Jane explains.
"Oh, well in that case, he must be Bigfoot," Hunter replies, agreeing with her theory.
"The only thing I don't understand is the importance of this key," Jane says, holding it up. "It was one of the only things in his pockets."
Hunter takes it from her and puts it in his pocket. "I think that's going to be another mystery to solve for another day."
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